RADA, RUBEN & MATEO, EDUARDO
BOTIJA DE MI PAIS (LITTLE BUTTERFLY RECORDS)
label:
LITTLE BUTTERFLY RECORDS
Recorded between 1985 and 1987, this album brings together the two founders and leading performers of candombe-beat, Ruben Rada and Eduardo Mateo.
They hadn't collaborated in a project since 1969. Both artists had reached their creative prime, with Mateo having released "Cuerpo y Alma" and Rada, "La yapla mata" (which included the classic song 'Tengo un candombe para Gardel').
The initiative of making this album sprang from the artists themselves. But when it was time to create, they rarely got together in the studio, preferring to work on their own.
Once finished, the album failed to make an impact, since neither of them promoted it. This revival brings the semi-hidden treasure to light.
It includes two tracks of the artists strictly performing a duet, the only recordings of Mateo and Rada working alongside each other and no one else.
It also contains two additional tracks where you can relish Rada accompanied by Mateo's guitar and Mateo backed by Rada's percussion.
It includes a track where Mateo commands the instruments (as in "Mateo solo bien se lame") and another with Rada's solo on vocals and percussion.
There are instances when Rada's band of that moment and "super-group" (with Osvaldo Nolé on keyboards, Ricardo Lew on electric guitar, Urbano on the bass and Osvaldo Fattoruso on drums), makes an appearance.
Sometimes, Urbano comes forth as lead singer, completing the triad of singers of "El Kinto".
All excellent songs. "Botija de mi País" is an exceptional and one-of-a-kind album, an overflow of talent, musicality, swing, imagination, rhythm, spark, and transcendence.